Higher education instructors’ perceptions of open pedagogy: an exploratory study of open pedagogy definitions in practice

ABSTRACT

An increase in open educational practices, such as the use of open educational resources (OER), has caused a wide array of definitions to appear concerning open pedagogy (OP). To help clarify how OP is defined in practice, this study describes the perceptions of instructors who implemented various approaches to OP in post-secondary institutions in the eastern United States. Researchers analysed survey data from faculty who adopted open pedagogy and thematically analysed interviews to understand instructors’ perceptions and implementations of OP. Instructors found value in providing students with more control over class procedures and policies, using and creating OER, and making student learning more visible to the outside world, but voiced concerns regarding the constraints and barriers of OP, the perception of instructors not using OP, and how their OP practices were still developing. These perceptions shaped instructors’ practical definition of OP. Further research is necessary to determine best practices for OP and to better refine OP implementation and definition related to the personnel and resources needed to make pedagogy ‘open.’

KEYWORDS:

• Open educational resources
• open pedagogy
• OER enabled pedagogy
• higher education pedagogy
• andragogy

Introduction

Higher education instructors utilise open pedagogy (OP) as a means to encourage student-directed learning in the classroom. Traditionally, OP learning experiences have involved student-directed learning experiences with teachers acting as facilitators (Elliott, 1973; Mai, 1978). However, modern technologies have created a means whereby OP allows students to share and remix content, and to network and collaborate with others (Hegarty, 2015; Hodgkinson-Williams & Gray, 2009; Mackintosh et al., 2011). For example, instructors utilising OP have incorporated open educational resources (OER) for learning activities in their courses such as the authoring and editing of Wikipedia articles (DeRosa & Robison, 2017). One aspect of using OER is allowing students increased access to materials at a decreased cost (Draper et al., 2020). Moreover, the use of modern technologies has led to the expansion of OP definitions to include participatory technologies, OER, and Web 2.0 technologies (Hegarty, 2015; Hodgkinson-Williams & Gray, 2009; Wiley, 2013)., These expanding definitions of OP highlight ‘the tendency for “open” to encompass many different interpretations and the capacity for the field to evolve accordingly’ (Cronin & MacLaren, 2018, p. 135).

Few studies have examined the perceptions of instructors who have implemented OP in the classroom, and how such perceptions and implementations may follow or shape the ‘evolving’ field of OP. The successes and challenges instructors face when implementing OP may influence future interpretations of what constitutes OP and therefore a lack of research in this area represents a significant gap in the literature. In the current study, we present the results of a series of interviews held with faculty members who have adopted OP. Listening to the voices of those who have adopted various approaches to OP is an important step in uncovering the value, difficulties and opportunities related to OP.

Current definitions and theories

Open pedagogy began with the first wave of open education in the 1960s and 1970s, ‘reflecting the education mind-set and wider political movements of that time’ (Cronin & MacLaren, 2018, p. 134). Such mindsets and movements were influenced by societal needs for freedom and exploration. These initial foundations of OP introduced ideas beyond just learning and teaching to include how ‘learning, teaching, technology, and social justice enter into a conversation with each other and inform the development of educational practices and structures’ (DeRosa & Jhangiani, 2017, para. 2). For example, Mai (1978) defined OP as an ‘informal classroom where children might be trusted to learn by exploring according to their interests, instead of being bored, demeaned, and alienated’ (p. 231). Daniel (2004) built on this definition, describing OP as a pedagogy ‘that treats the student as an intellectual equal’ (p. 9).

Internet technologies, including the advent of blogs, social media and online forums, have expanded the context of OP from student-directed learning, to student-directed networking, collaboration, and open publishing (Hegarty, 2015; Hodgkinson-Williams & Gray, 2009; Mackintosh et al., 2011). Weller (2013) defined an OP which ‘places an emphasis on the network and the learner’s connections within it’ (p. 10). Similarly, Hegarty (2015) included participatory technologies as the first attribute of OP. DeRosa and Robison (2017) defined OP as ‘platforms for learning, collaboration, and engagement with the world outside the classroom’ (p. 118). OER facilitate student collaboration and engagement with the world by providing a legal framework that legitimises the use of shared resources and can lift barriers to student learning (D’Antoni, 2008; Luo et al., 2020). More formally, OER as ‘the open provision of educational resources, enabled by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes’ allows for pedagogies that can focus more on learning and less on the legal ramifications of such learning (UNESCO, 2002, p. 24).

The continual expansion of OP definitions has created significant debate concerning its conceptualisation (Bali, 2017; Cronin & MacLaren, 2018). For example, Wiley (2013) defined OER as prerequisites to OP, stating that pedagogies can only be considered ‘open’ if they rely upon the 4 R permissions of OER (i.e. the ability to retain, revise, remix, and reuse resources or content). The debate over Wiley’s conflation of OP and OER acted as an impetus for Wiley and Hilton (2018) to later suggest that using OER is not a prerequisite of OP, but is instead an example of OER-enabled OP.

The evolution of and debate concerning conceptualisations of OP underscore academia’s continual struggle with defining and describing OP. While defining OP is a worthwhile endeavour, researchers’ myopic focus on describing the definition of OP has left instructors with little to no research-backed findings for implementing OP in the classroom. However, the struggle to define OP underscores two key considerations for OP researchers. First, research on instructors’ perceptions of OP ought to be conducted with regularity since the evolution of OP may cause shifts in perceptions of OP and therefore its definition as used by practitioners. Second, OP research ought to account for a variety of OP conceptualisations since instructors may emphasise different forms of OP in various contexts.

In response to these considerations, we examined instructors’ perceptions of OP along four evolving dimensions — (a) OP’s focus on access, broadly conceived, (b) OP’s emphasis on learner-driven curricula and educational structures, (c) OP’s priority of community and collaboration over content, and (d) OP’s contextualisation of the university as part of a wider public – to answer the following research questions:

1. How do instructors define and implement OP?

2. What are instructors’ experiences with OP regarding course implementation and student learning outcomes compared to traditional practices?

3. (a) What are the perceived affordances and constraints of using OP in higher education? (b) In what ways do instructors’ feel that the affordances of OP outweigh the constraints or vice versa?

Uncovering answers to such questions can provide researchers and practitioners of OP with concrete examples of OP in practice to better shape OP definitions and theories.

Methodology

Participants

We interviewed instructors who had implemented OP in their classrooms. The instructors surveyed and interviewed as part of the present study were drawn from three colleges in the eastern United States. Some of these instructors taught in person, while others taught online or blended sections. All of these classes were higher-education courses leading to bachelor’s degrees. Between 2018–2019, we surveyed 28 instructors who had used OP. All participants gave informed consent and had no obligation to participate in this study. This study was approved by an Institutional Review Board; moreover, the researchers did not have a direct relationship or supervisory roles with participants and member checking was conducted to ensure that participants were not misrepresented.

The survey questions were used to gather general perceptions of open pedagogy. The 28 participating instructors represent only a small fraction of the total population of instructors at these three post-secondary institutions. Research participants were relatively evenly distributed across the institutions and also in terms of teaching experience; most had taught between 3–10 years, although for many of the interviewees it was their first time using OP. Slightly more than half of the instructors had PhDs, with the remaining holding master’s degrees. Oral interviews were also conducted with 17 instructors who were drawn from the 28 surveyed instructors based on their willingness to participate in an oral survey. In these interviews, we asked a series of exploratory questions to learn more about participants’ experiences with OP. Examples of such questions included: (a) ‘What did you do in your course to implement open pedagogy?’ (b) ‘Could you share a story (either positive or negative) to illustrate how students were impacted by open pedagogy?’ (c) ‘In what positive ways did using open pedagogy affect you as a teacher? In what negative ways?’ Each oral interview lasted between 20–40 minutes.

Data analysis

The analysis of our survey and interview data was completed following the mixed methods research guidelines of convergent parallel design as expressed by Cresswell and Plano Clark (2011). Survey and interview data were gathered within the same phase of research and then compared and analysed together to uncover findings related to the research questions. As such, the findings reported below came from both the survey data and oral interviews. The interviews were transcribed by the researchers and analysed using the research questions as a framework for a priori themes as well as a modified thematic analysis based on the methods of Attride-Stirling (2001) to allow for emerging themes. Responses to individual interview questions and follow up questions, if applicable, were treated as single units of analysis. Throughout the analysis, researchers tracked themes and related passages by recording notes while reading per Wolcott (1994).

Findings

As could be expected from current OP definitions and theories, instructors had different ideas concerning the definition of OP, different implementations in their courses, and different reactions to such implementations. Instructors’ definitions of OP were categorised within three themes — (a) increasing student ownership and agency, (b) the use and creation of OER, and (c) connecting learners to those outside the course. Some instructors felt as though using OP was really about providing students with additional ownership and agency for their learning. During the interviews, several instructors mentioned ‘empowering students’ or allowing them to be ‘more in charge of their learning and taking more responsibility for parts of teaching the class that were traditionally the instructor’s role.’ Other instructors focused more on the use and creation of OER as a ‘core’ part of OP. The inclusion of these two elements provided the most common approach to OP. A less common approach to OP included connecting learners to others from around the world or making learning more apparent through openly sharing thoughts, products, and processes with others. Table 1 provides the number of interviewed instructors who used various approaches to OP and examples of each approach.

Table 1. Interviewed instructors’ descriptions of open pedagogy activities.

Type of activity	No. of instructors who reported using the activity	General description of activity
Making learning visible	11	Creating artefacts such as blog posts, tweets, websites, or videos.
Using OER	7	Using openly licensed/free textbooks or data to complete class activities (e.g. Pressbooks, and Twitter or social media).
Creating OER textbooks	5	Working together to create a book that was openly shared.
Creating other OER	4	Creating OER such as quiz question banks, study guides, reference lists, or portfolios.
Syllabus control	6	Having input for technology, attendance, and homework course policies, or choice over the course’s assignments/topics.

OER refers to open educational resources.

While not all instructors used or created OER as part of their OP, many did. Those who chose not to mentioned that OER are still an important piece of OP that should not be overlooked. One instructor who focused on using OER stated that doing so was a means of providing equity, remarking that OP ‘is really about creating an accessible platform for the dissemination and sharing of knowledge’, citing the strain that costly textbooks put on students, ‘especially undergrads’. Such perceived benefits for students when using OER seemed to be a powerful argument for using them as part of an instructor’s pedagogy. And while many instructors did not focus on this piece, it is one that warrants further investigation.

Instructors also viewed OP as a means of opening their classroom to the rest of the world. This happened in one of two ways, either by going out into the world to bring relevant knowledge back into the classroom or sharing knowledge that was gained within the classroom with the rest of the world. This sharing and gathering of information was mostly done through the creation and use of social media, blogs, and easily accessible, open, or free to access articles.

Despite the different perceptions concerning the essential elements of OP, instructors’ reactions to its implementation were generally positive, and individual instructors provided specific examples of why they felt positive about using OP. They appreciated that using OP made student learning more visible and allowed students to work on building lifelong skills such as cooperation, communication, critical thinking, and creativity (National Education Association, n.d.). Additionally, some instructors revealed that they felt the use of OP allowed them to model professionalism for their students, providing real-world examples of working in their given fields.

Many instructors felt as though using OP was also a way to help students become more effective adult learners, i.e. students had to take greater ownership of their learning process and think through what they were learning, why they wanted to learn it, and how they would learn it. For these instructors, OP seemed to be synonymous with effective andragogy; it was simply the best way to teach adults. Such instructors also felt as though providing students with more agency and ownership increased collaboration between students, as well as between students and the instructor; and allowed instructors to better model professionalism.

Despite the overall positive reaction, instructors also shared examples of some obstacles that may have prevented them or their students from fully embracing OP. Examples of such obstacles included potential fiscal and temporal costs, the perception of OP from other instructors, and the potential to improve upon what they had previously been doing in class by revising their initial attempts at using OP. Overall, instructors felt that the affordances of OP outweighed the constraints and that they would therefore not only continue using OP for the courses in which it had already been implemented, but they would also work to expand it to other courses.

General perceptions of open pedagogy

Surveyed instructors reported needing extra time to implement OP. Six instructors (23%) said they spent the same amount of time as in previous semesters on their course preparations, whereas 14 instructors (54%) said they spent somewhat more time and six (23%) spent much more time integrating OP. Despite the increase in time required, 64% of instructors said they were very likely to continue using OP based on their experiences; the remaining 36% stated that they would be somewhat likely to do so. Table 2 displays survey data regarding various learning outcomes as related to core content and professional skills.

Table 2. General perceptions of learning outcomes when using open pedagogy.

Outcome	Greater with open pedagogy compared with traditional activities	Same with open pedagogy compared with traditional activities	Less with open pedagogy compared with traditional activities
Mastery of core academic content	20 (77%)	5 (19%)	1 (14%)
Skills in collaborative learning	15 (58%)	11 (42%)
Critical thinking and problem solving	20 (80%)	5 (20%)
Effective communication	18 (69%)	8 (31%)
Learning how to learn	17 (65%)	9 (35%)

There were two participants from the 2018–2019 survey who did not answer the ‘Critical thinking and problem solving’ question, but answered all others.

Survey responses indicated that instructors felt that using OP improved student learning outcomes. Some instructors felt that mastery of core academic content was the same regardless of whether OP or more traditional activities were used, but only one instructor felt that mastery of core content was worse when using OP. All instructors, however, felt that using OP had the same or better outcomes for improving life skills of collaboration, critical thinking, effective communication, and learning how to learn. Most instructors reported that using OP had greater outcomes for these life skills than traditional pedagogy.

Individual applications of open pedagogy

Due to the various definitions for OP, it is not surprising to find that the instructors who participated in interviews had various approaches to implementing OP in their courses. Review Table 1 for a description of activities that were used as part of instructors’ OP and a description of such activities. Of the various approaches to OP, more than half of the 17 interviewed instructors incorporated making student learning visible to people other than the instructor. Some instructors asked students to create or contribute to a website to display their learning to others, while others simply asked students to participate in ongoing academic discussions using tools like Twitter or Hypothesis. Instructors had mixed reactions about using some of these tools noting that, despite beliefs that millennial students are technology efficient and readily share their lives on social media, some students were highly resistant to sharing their work openly.

Instructors had to convince students that it was okay to share work that may not be polished or perfect. In almost all cases, students eventually chose to share their work and felt better about their learning for doing so. In a couple of cases, instructors had to modify assignments to compromise with students who felt uncomfortable making their learning visible to others.

Other activities related to OP were spread pretty evenly among participants. Instructors commonly used and created OER texts as part of their practices. The OER texts used were mostly constructed by the instructors themselves using applications like WordPress. Some instructors used OER created by others or by previous instructors or students. In addition to using OER, some instructors also had their students create OER. This approach resulted in the creation of new OER texts – or new contributions to OER texts – and other course related materials such as quiz questions, portfolios, study guides, and resources for other students.

Instructors found that these OER-enabled practices, while generally providing affordances also presented various constraints. Several instructors noted that students struggled to contribute to OER because they did not feel qualified. One instructor who was working with students towards creating an open textbook recalled students feeling ‘really daunted’ by the task, noting that she would seek to better ‘empower them at the beginning’ of the course to let them know what they are capable of. Other instructors noted similar difficulties that resulted in needing to provide students with additional support as compared to traditional pedagogy. One instructor noted that students ‘made terrible questions at first’, and required lots of support to create better quiz questions. Another challenge for some students was having the freedom to choose what they would create for their OER projects. An instructor noted that one student tried to write about a really ‘sparse subject’ and struggled coming up with original ideas to share.

For the most part, however, instructors stated that most students felt good about their OP experiences. For example, one instructor felt that allowing students to create writing that would be shared as part of an open resource showed her that students could ‘write better than they’ve shown [her] in the past’. Another instructor explained that ‘students really dug the idea that at 18 years old they were published authors’. The consensus among instructors seemed to be that the affordances of using and creating OER outweighed the constraints, but that there was a learning curve for implementing OP, and many of their approaches and activities may need further planning and revision.

The only other activity commonly reported by instructors who were implementing OP was to give students some control over the syllabus. This included allowing students to create learning objectives, choose their assignments, and decide upon class policies regarding technology use, attendance, late-work, etc. Few instructors tried to allow students to do all of these, but six instructors let students do at least one. Instructors generally felt that students appreciated having more choice and control over their learning in a course. There were exceptions, but these seemed to be few, and in many cases such students would eventually come round to appreciating the new approach.

Perceived affordances of open pedagogy

Despite taking various approaches to OP, instructors seemed to express similar ideas concerning its affordances. Such ideas included increasing student performance through making student learning more visible to the world beyond the classroom, increasing student/instructor and student/student collaboration, and creating opportunities to model professional practices.

Making learning visible

Instructors felt that students enjoyed the opportunities that OP provided them with for openly displaying their learning. Instructors shared stories of students who were able to converse with experts and others who were interested in their work. Instructors also felt that students seemed to produce better work when they realised that friends, family, and strangers might see it. Despite these benefits, some students were very anxious about openly sharing their work, and some were even cautious. However, as they witnessed the experiences and benefits of their peers’ acts of sharing, most students decided to share their work.

Increasing collaboration

Instructors felt that students benefitted from the increased opportunities for collaboration that came with OP. They felt that increasing collaboration made students feel more comfortable communicating with the instructor and with other students. This collaboration led to student-centred learning outcomes, activities, and OER. While some of these outcomes could be achieved without the use of OP, instructors felt that using OP created more opportunities for collaboration than their traditional pedagogies, with one instructor stating, ‘my relationship with students, just across the board, is so much better’.

Modelling professionalism

The final way in which instructors felt OP had an impact on their teaching practices was that it allowed them to model professionalism for their students through demonstrating professional qualities or responsibilities as well as giving students professional experiences. OP allowed students to take more ownership over their learning processes, take part in activities that mirrored professional responsibilities, and allowed students to use more creativity in completing coursework. Despite these benefits, instructors mentioned that a lot of preparation was required to create an environment of openness and professionalism: ‘You’ve got to teach them about learning and about what open pedagogy does and about what a learning outcome is and setting goals for their learning – for their learning as a class and how to hold each other accountable’.

Perceived constraints of open pedagogy

Despite instructors finding value in using OP, such affordances were not without constraints. Some of the constraints that instructors mentioned included the sacrifice of personal time and high-quality, but costly, materials to create a course with OP, the perceptions of those unfamiliar with OP, the basic technology skills needed for OP, and the ways in which their implementation of OP could be improved. Instructors also had ongoing questions about the use of OP at their specific institutions.

Potential costs

Anytime new practices are put into place, there are potential costs. This was true for OP. While instructors generally felt as though the costs were minimal, they did voice some concern about such costs. Instructors felt that one of the primary costs of using OP was that it took more time for planning and implementation than they expected. One instructor admitted, ‘I totally underestimated how much time it takes to do something like this’. Another stated that ‘The only negative – and I don’t know if I would call it negative – is that I have to critically think even more. Because I have to go through and teach my students how to go through, what’s real? What’s not real [i.e. fake news]?’ One instructor also had some apprehension concerning the technical knowledge that is required for some OP activities such as creating blogs, using social media, or creating OER through a site like WordPress, citing the fear of technology changing and having to spend more time re-learning new technologies. These temporal costs were unexpected for some instructors and occasionally proved difficult to overcome.

Some instructors also felt that using OP required less effective learning activities and less

effective instructional materials than they had previously used because they tried to orient their courses around OER. However, they felt that it was better to have free low-quality textbooks than expensive high-quality textbooks. One such instructor commented, ‘this textbook isn’t very good, I mean, I guess in the end I’ll stick with, using that textbook, because it is free’. This was one example of instructors choosing to stick with OP due to the affordances outweighing the constraints.

Potential barriers

Instructors also encountered various barriers that prevented them from a seamless transition to OP. One of these barriers included the feeling that OP could lead to a misunderstanding among colleagues concerning the aims of OP. One instructor mentioned that not enough people know about OP, and ‘a misunderstanding about it could be pressure on [others], especially contingent instructors or people who are tenured track but not yet tenured’. Instructors also felt as though there might be some misunderstanding about the structure of learning that happens using OP, and that such structures might create more work for students if implemented without redesigning a course around OP. Instructors also noted that at times they had problems with technology that slowed down the learning process, especially with the software used to publish online resources or changing requirements within the university about software accessibility and sharing student work.

Instructors also reported student-centred barriers. Such barriers included students who were resistant to participating in OP, or misinterpreted what it meant to be in a class that uses OP, and students who were hesitant or resistant towards using new technologies. Instructors mentioned students who were resistant towards the idea of reflecting on their learning and learning processes, students who wanted to complete coursework in a more traditional study and test manner, students who struggled to be honest using self-assessments, and students who were frustrated by OER projects that did not conclude by the end of the semester – but would be continued by different students in future semesters. Students were also hesitant about using technologies that they had never used before. Examples of these technologies included reading and annotating on a screen using Hypothesis and creating proper permissions for others while blogging. Despite some students’ discomfort with technology, one instructor mentioned that her students felt more comfortable with it by the end of the course.

Developing practices

Instructors had several ideas concerning how they could have improved upon their initial attempts at OP. For example, some instructors felt practices could be improved by altering some of the assignment requirements, such as including more individual opportunities to create Wikipedia entries. Another practice that instructors sought to improve upon was the time commitment that some of the assignments required. One instructor noted that some of her new assignments focused on creating OER caused other assignments to get less attention, lowering the quality of other assignments that were equally important. Nearly all instructors felt as though there was potential for improving their use of OP. Some of these improvements included minor revisions to assignments or coursework, while others required redesigning larger portions of the course.

Unanswered questions

Just as instructors’ approaches to OP varied, so did the questions that they had about its ongoing use. One question that instructors seemed to share was how to continue open assignments that had started in one semester and would carry over to another semester. Another question that instructors faced was the role and importance of OER to OP. One instructor noted that she had used OP in two courses, one with OER as a central component and one without OER as central. She felt as though the class in which OER were central was more successful than the other. Another instructor wondered if maybe it would be better to get institutional funding to pay for an online text that is not openly licenced to get the benefits of using OER without having to use openly licenced material. The final question from instructors was about the aspect of ‘open’ itself, and how to balance openly licenced learning products with professional expectations of what a finished ‘shareable’ product should look like when students’ learning products may not be fully polished.

The continued use of OP

Instructors had many thoughts concerning the continued use of OP. Some instructors chose to continue using OP due to its impact on them as teachers – changing their vision of what is possible in teaching, reading students’ excited responses to OP, or seeing how much more students cared about their learning. Other instructors chose to continue using OP because they liked the affordances it provided to students. One instructor admitted that she used to be ‘one of those kinds of “complaining about my students” teachers’, and mentioned that giving students more agency was ‘very transformative’ for her because it took ‘student blaming away’. Other instructors mentioned that students seemed happy with OP, they were more excited to share their learning experiences with them or the class, and that there seemed to be a lot of potential for teaching students important life and technology skills. The final reason that instructors gave for wanting to continue using OP is that they had started projects and assignments that they would like to continue building upon. These projects and assignments included OER that were not yet finished, open portfolios and blogs that seemed beneficial to students, and revised resources such as lists of technologies to integrate into K-12 courses. Some instructors also admitted that they would like to continue using OP because they did not want their newfound technology skills to go to waste.

When asked about implementing OP in other courses, most instructors seemed excited to do so. Some were so excited that they had already started implementing it in courses outside the course they had attended for their professional development. Instructors also noted ways in which they could take their experiences from one course and apply them to other courses, such as using Wikipedia assignments or portfolios across a full programme or series of courses. One instructor even felt so positive about her experiences with OP that she decided to attend graduate school and conduct research about open education as a means of sharing her experiences.

Instructors who had not determined whether they would continue using OP stated that they would not dismiss using it if some of their lingering questions could be answered. One of the likely reasons that instructors planned to continue using OP is that they felt doing so provided students with greater learning outcomes. It should be expected that implementation of new pedagogies might produce lower learning outcomes than practices that instructors are familiar with and have revised many times before. However, in the case of OP, it seems that despite potential setbacks and need for improvement, instructors still felt as though using OP increased mastery of learning outcomes and improved students’ 21st century skills. For example, being able to model professional expectations and provide professional experiences through the use of OP may have allowed students to have more mastery over learning outcomes and more mastery over 21st century skills.

Discussion

There are various definitions of OP, and instructors’ approaches to and reasons for implementing OP varied just as much. Some instructors used OP as a means for allowing students to have more ownership over course objectives and policies, which resembled the definitions of OP as proposed by Daniel (2004), DeRosa and Jhangiani (2017), and Mai (1978). Other instructors felt as though OP meant using and/or creating OER as the driving force behind instruction – following the definitions of OP proposed by Wiley (2013). Other instructors focused their use of OP on making learning visible to others, i.e. ‘opening up’ what goes on within the walls of the classroom, or providing students with some control over the course syllabus, class policies, and/or assignments. For these instructors, OP followed the definitions of Hegarty (2015), Hodgkinson-Williams and Gray (2009), Mackintosh et al. (2011), and Weller (2013). These various approaches to OP can all shape how OP is conceptualised in the future. Regardless of approach, instructors generally felt as though their approaches to OP provided students with more mastery over learning objectives, and greater 21st century skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, communication, and learning how to learn.

Such implementations of OP seemed to be synonymous with effective andragogy; it was simply the best way to teach adults. Chan (2010) reported on six foundational aspects of andragogy as applied by Birzer (2004) to criminal justice programmes. These six aspects included:

1. Establishing a physically and psychologically conducive learning atmosphere.

2. Involving learners in mutual planning.

3. Involving learners in diagnosing learning needs.

4. Encouraging students to formulate the learning objectives.

5. Encouraging learners to identify resources to accomplish the learning objectives.

6. Involving learners in learning evaluation. (Chan, 2010, p. 29)

Instructors implementing OP allowed students to have ownership over some aspects of class planning, formulating learning objectives, finding resources to accomplish learning objectives, and deciding how their learning would be evaluated. Such implementations of OP follow some basic tenets of andragogy. Future research could more closely examine the overlap between OP and effective andragogy.

In addition to following some tenets of andragogy, instructors’ implementations of OP allowed for greater student autonomy. Moore (1993) identified three dimensions along which students could have learning autonomy: (1) goals, (2) evaluation, (3) and execution. Many of the OP practices allowed for a degree of student autonomy along these dimensions. Our study revealed that most instructors felt that using OP had greater outcomes for life skills, such as becoming lifelong learners, than traditional pedagogy. Further research could examine how various implementations of OP provide students with ownership over their goals, the evaluation of those goals, and the execution of those goals. Such ownership may be important if students are expected to continue their education or training post-graduation.

Our analysis also suggested that even though mastery of learning outcomes may not see improvement by using OP, adopting OP may be valuable due to the opportunity for increasing communication, collaboration, and creativity. While communication, collaboration, and creativity could be implemented outside OP, instructors seemed to feel that OP more easily facilitated such interactions. One instructor noted that OP allowed students to interact with experts around the world by sharing evidence of learning on social media. These conversations likely would not have happened without open sharing.

The affordances of OP were not without constraints. These constraints stemmed from legitimate sources of hesitation for the adoption of OP and became barriers to OP implementation. Cost and quality are examples of such barriers. Future adopters of OP may be diverted from adoption if it requires too high a cost or transitioning to lower quality resources. For example, transitioning to OP required some instructors to find more time for planning and implementing course activities, and led at least one instructor to feel as though course materials were of a lower quality than previously used non-open materials. Instructors also had anxiety about technologies for OP activities changing over time. Although changing technology can be an issue with any type of educational endeavour, it is possible that adopting OP could exacerbate this issue. While most barriers were minor enough that instructors generally felt that the affordances outweighed the constraints, more research is needed to understand the kind of cost/benefit analysis that instructors undergo in deciding whether the implementation of OP is worth overcoming legitimate sources of hesitation for OP.

Additional research is also needed to better understand the technology skills and dispositions needed to implement OP. In some cases, instructors using OP worried that if their dispositions were too different from their students or other instructors, they might face negative judgement concerning their practices. Additionally, instructors worried that learning to use technology to share their students’ learning might become a burden if that technology changed, and some instructors faced these circumstances. Students also faced many constraints, and in some cases courses or assignments had to be modified by the instructor to allow students to participate in the learning activities. Such examples may suggest that OP is better suited for some instructors and students than others, but the analysis of characteristics that drive such differences was outside the scope of our study.

As implementation and iteration of OP continue to expand, studies reviewing its conceptualisations and impacts should too. Concerning future iterations of OP, instructors had many questions about how best to continue its use. Many of these questions may derive from the definitional murkiness surrounding OP. Instructors’ questions centred around continuing OER projects from semester-to-semester, using OER in classes, and preventing negative experiences for students who share learning products online that may not be fully polished. More research is needed to determine answers to some of the ongoing questions presented by instructors in this study and to gather a body of best practices for OP. Future research may also aim to understand the role that colleagues, librarians, resource specialists, and academic departments play in helping instructors to implement OP. It may be the case that, like Wiley (2013), users of OP need to better describe the ‘open’ aspect of the OP they are using – whether it is OER enabled, an open class policy pedagogy, or open sharing pedagogy – to obtain needed support for OP implementation.

Conclusion

Our study was limited by focusing only on the experiences of faculty within three colleges in the eastern United States. It was also limited by the questions used for qualitative inquiry within both the survey and interview protocol and the interpretive nature of qualitative inquiry. However, our findings provide valuable insights into working definitions of OP as well as its applications, affordances, and constraints. The results of the research demonstrated that definitional murkiness surrounding OP may be because OP is implemented in various ways. Implementations of OP included providing students with choice over class procedures and policies, creating and using OER, and making learning visible to audiences outside the classroom. Future research in this area can build upon our findings by seeking to uncover best practices for implementing OP in higher education, especially regarding the constraints mentioned by interviewed faculty; more precise definitions for OP by providing more conditional definitions, such as Wiley and Hilton’s (2018) OER-enabled definition of OP; and the ways in which OP can help improve student ownership through controlling elements of instruction such as assessments and course syllabi.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cecil R. Short

Cecil R. Short is an Assistant Professor and Director of Secondary Education in The Teachers College at Emporia State University. His research broadly focuses on Personalised Learning, Blended Teaching, Open Educational Resources (OER), and OER-Enabled Practices. More about him and his work can be found online at www.cecilrshort.com.

Bryson Hilton

Bryson Hilton is a doctoral researcher at the University of Texas at San Antonio, dedicated to fostering student success through research on learning management, goal attainment, and stakeholder engagement.

John Hilton

John Hilton III is a Professor of Religious Education at Brigham Young University. He has published several articles examining the efficacy of Open Educational Resources.

David Wiley

David Wiley is the Chief Academic Officer of Lumen Learning, a company dedicated to eliminating race, gender, and income as predictors of student success in US higher education, using a combination of open educational resources, learning analytics, generative AI, continuous improvement, and professional development. He is also Education Fellow at Creative Commons, adjunct faculty in Brigham Young University’s graduate programme in Instructional Psychology and Technology, where he was previously a tenured Associate Professor, and Entrepreneur in Residence at Marshall University’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation.

Reta Chaffee

Reta Chaffee is the Director of Educational Technology at the University of New Hampshire, College of Professional Studies Online, formerly known as Granite State College. She oversees the instructional team that collaborates with academic directors and faculty to design and develop online courses that support excellence in teaching and learning. The work of the instructional design team is ever-changing as it incorporates new strategies including open education, universal design and access, and generative AI. Reta is an active member of an organisation focused on “Driving OER Sustainability for Student Success” – the DOERs Collaborative.

JoAnn Guilmett

JoAnn Guilmett is the Director of Client Services in Enterprise Technology & Services team as part of the University System of New Hampshire. In her prior role she served as the Director of Client Services and Academic Technology for Plymouth State University, overseeing a cross-functional team of Academic Technologists and Technology Support specialists.

Jennifer Darrow

Jennifer Darrow is the Director of Digital Learning in the Learning and Teaching Collaborative at Keene State College (KSC). Jenny and her colleagues partner with faculty to research, design, and develop technology-rich projects that support teaching and learning. She has been a catalyst for Open Education at KSC and helped organise an Open Education initiative that included a faculty-focused Open Education Learning Community and an Open Educational Resources Working Group with attention to Creative Commons licenses. She continues to advocate for the adoption of OER and low-cost course materials.